Valley View Education Center News

Congratulations to EHS teacher, Mr. Travis Thompson, the EIS ExCEL winner sponsored by WHAS11 & LG&E/KU. What a great ceremony held at EHS to honor an excellent teacher. The speakers told of the energic and entertaining ways Mr. Thompson engages his students and gets them to achieve at high levels. He is a passionate educator keeping his students' needs and interests a high priority when teaching.

Congratulations to the 8 juniors that participated in the Hardin County American Private Enterprise Seminar (APES). This seminar, sponsored by the Hardin County Extension Office, taught the students about the American economic system and the global economy and helped prepare participants for an active role in business through involvement with business leaders. After each segment, students took 10 question Payday quizzes and a 50 question exam at the end of the seminar. Kaitlyn Brandenburg placed 1st and named top female. Bryan Herringshaw placed 2nd and named top male. Jenson Harner was named as the first alternate. Kaitlyn and Bryan now have the opportunity to participate in the state APES seminar held in June at the University of Kentucky.

Emily Ryan has been named a Semifinalist for the 2019 class of the Coca‑Cola Scholars Program, moving to the next round of the selection process to become a Coca-Cola Scholar and receive a $20,000 college scholarship.

1,896 high school seniors were selected as Semifinalists from a pool of 95,715 applications from across the country based on their academic excellence, leadership and service demonstrated in school and community activities.

EHS had a great showing at the Kentucky Youth Assembly this past weekend. Many of our students earned individual honors as well as EHS.

Individual Awards:

Outstanding Delegate: Ayesha Nasir

Outstanding Speaker: Matthew Barnes

Outstanding Doorkeeper: Garrett Inman

Elected Speaker of the Bluegrass House: Haider Nasir. This is the second highest elected position among freshman and sophomores. Haider ran a fantastic campaign and gave articulate speeches.

Elected Speaker of the Commonwealth House: Aidan Aldridge. This is the second highest elected position among juniors and seniors. This is a tremendous honor considering Aidan was up against some solid completion.

Lily Addington and Natalie Schory were both Presiding Officers over this year’s KYA. They gave great speeches, ran debate chambers, and they assisted the Y Staff in maintaining decorum over a group of 1500 students.

Mac Meyer, Ayesha Nasir, and Jake Vaught were all Supporting Officers at this year’s KYA and their roles included chairing and clerking debate chambers.

Delegation Awards: We were also recognized for excellence on a school-wide level in addition to our individual accolades.

Once again EHS was recognized as a Premier Delegation.

And last but certainly not least EHS was recognized as the Outstanding Delegation for KYA. This is the highest award a delegation can earn and only one delegation out of over 40 schools earned this award!!

C. Alvey from TK Stone, L. Looten from Helmwood Heights, A. Truitt from Panther Academy, S. Billings from Morningside and T. Thompson from EHS are the ExCEL nominees for 2018-2019. Congratulations to them all!

Sarah has been named as a 2018 Wendy's High School Heisman State Winner. There was a pool of nearly 42,000 students with 967 state finalist of that 20 from KY. Now just she and one other KY student are state winners. Way to go Sarah and best of luck in the national competition.

Elizabethtown High School InvenTeam is one of 15 schools in the nation to be awarded this grant for a technological solution to a real-world problem. They are inventing a confined space personal safety monitor. This is a very exciting award and project for our 10 students on the team.

Natalie is the first student in EHS history to sit for an Expert Level Microsoft Office Specialist exam. On October 12, 2018, Natalie successfully completed and earned her Expert Level Certification from Microsoft in Excel 2016. Last year, Natalie earned all five Microsoft Office Specialist Level 1 certifications while a student in Mrs. Deon’s Digital Literacy class.

College Success Award Winners from Great Schools come from nine states for schools that go beyond graduating students to helping them enroll in college and succeed once they get there. Elizabethtown High School, the only local and surrounding county high school with this honor.

The ribbon cutting for the Taste of TK Kitchen Classroom sponsored by Lowe's and completed by Lowe's Heroes was held today. Teacher Mr. Alvey, Mrs. O'Brien, and Mrs. Morris along with the students prepared refreshments in their new kitchen for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

A grant from Monsanto through a nomination process of our local farmers provided Helmwood Heights with $10,000 to purchase materials for their newly created STEM Lab. This is a hands-on science lab for all students to explore science and engineering concepts. Thank you, J. Cruse, J. Langley, and B. & L. Thomas, our local farmers for the nomination, G. Wilson the Monsanto rep, J. Ballard, K. Bush and S. Ryan, J. Turner, L. Looten EIS reps and Mayor Edna Berger are pictured along with a few of Helmwood's leaders.

The Women's Auxilary of the American Legion donated $100 towards school supplies for students in need. Our community is very generous in helping us meet the needs of our school families. "Just Be Kind" is very contagious.

What a great opening day. Thanks to the inspiring words of our Superintendent, Mr. Jon Ballard. Tricia Smith, of the "Just Be Kind" sign campaign, also shared a message of kindness with our district that will be carried into our schools daily. This goes hand in hand with our recent training with Tara Brown on building relationships within our community.

Jansen Wilson, a member of the EHS Boys Soccer Team, has been named 2017 Gatorade Player of the Year in Kentucky for Boys Soccer. What a tremendous honor and award. Jansen not only excels on the soccer field, but also in the classroom. Congratualtions from the EIS family and community.

The SBDM Council had a challenging task in finding the next EHS Principal. After reviewing surveys, applications, speaking with references, interviewing and then finally discussing what is best for EHS, the council voted to hire Jennifer Burnham as the next EHS Principal. Ms. Burnham is returning to EIS from Hardin County. She served as the TK Stone Principal from 2015-2017. She brings four years of teaching experience from North Hardin High School, five years teaching and three years as Assistant Principal at Central Hardin High School, This past year she worked as the Director of Federal Programs for Hardin County.

Ms. Burnham is known as a very dedicated, hard working educator with very specific goals to assist students in the pursuit of excellence.

US News has named Elizabethtown High School as a Silver category, Best High Schools for 2018.

Less than 30% of the schools earned the right to display a badge and to be called Best High Schools. U.S. News badges are widely recognized as symbols of excellence in education. Data on enrollment, student ethnicity, location, school type, and results of state assessments and Advanced Placement tests are reviewed in determination of Best High Schools.

The Elizabethtown High School Site Based Decision Making Council and Mr. Jon Ballard, Superintendent, are asking for your input in selecting the new Principal. Please click on the link below to answer 3 questions about the criteria you feel is most important when looking for a new Principal. Your input as a community member, staff member, student or parent is a valued part of the selection process.

Thank you for your assistance in this important task of selecting a new Principal at Elizabethtown High School.

EHS held its own version of Shark Tank at the EPAC. Ethan Jones and Claire Godfrey were this year's winners with Heat 350. Students in Mrs. Pennington's business class create and present ideas to a panel of judges. Thank you to this year's judges: Barbara Byrd, Junior Achievement, Matt Tyler, Raymond James/United Bank & Trust, and Teri Bennett, Hardin Co. Sheriff's office.

Mrs. Carla Kuhn was named the new Principal at Panther Academy to replace the retiring principal, Kelly Graham. The SBDM council and Mr. Ballard annouced Mrs. Kuhn after a long, detailed selection process. She's been with EIS since 2005 as a teacher at Helmwood Heights and transferred to Panther Academy when it opened six years ago.

Congratulations Mr. Steve Smallwood, new Assistant Superintendent of Student Services. He will replace Mr. Nate Huggins starting July 1, 2018. He'll finish the current year strong at EHS with a top notch graduating class of 2018.

EHS Academic Team members took the General Knowledge test at the state level and finished above the top ten. – Nathan J. – 3rd; Jake B.– 4th; Ameer H. – 8th in the state. Not too much surprise as these are the same three students with perfect ACT scores.

The Future Problem Solving Team at Elizabethtown High School finished 5th in the state this past weekend. this top win qualifies the team for International FPS competition in LaCrosse Wisconsin. This compeition includes teams from all over the United States and several foreign countries.

"Every year these kids blow me away! Congratulations to the TK Stone FPS team who earned 6th place at STATE Governors Cup and a bid to INTERNATIONALS!!! Best finish ever!". Vickie Shearer and Kerrie Bal, coaches.

Five 6th grade TK Stone Middle School Students were winners of the Magnolia Bank “Preparing for Success” Scholarships. To apply for the scholarship students had to write an essay describing a career they would like to have and how they planned to achieve that career. The winners were awarded a t-shirt, book bag, award certificate and a $100 certificate of deposit with Magnolia Bank. They also, along with their parents, were treated to a pizza party at Mr. Gatti’s in Elizabethtown.

This is an outstanding accomplishment for these 5 individuals and having 5 out of one class of students is phenomenal.

About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool
of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

The Education Foundation's Prize Team left Central Office in a bus filled with balloons and giant checks for teachers across our distict. Teachers applied for grants to help support the instructional needs of their classrooms to enhance the education of their students. Today, at each school winners were announced and checks passed out. Our students are truly blessed by a strong community and dedicated foundation members that believe in success for each student.

Elizabethtown Independent Schools has been awarded a $30,750 three-year grant for summer 2018-20 through the Greater Horizon Fund of Kansas City to partially fund their K-3 summer reading slide prevention program sponsored by Kids Read Now. The program, based on the work of early literacy researcher, teacher and author Dr. Richard Allington, provides student-selected books mailed home each week throughout the summer. Included in the program are nine Lexile-leveled books, weekly parent contact, spring to fall test score analysis and three-year longitudinal data metrics provided to the district. (615) K-3 Elizabethtown Independent elementary school students will participate.

Elizabethtown High School competed in the Regional Governor’s Cup Competition at Nelson County High School on Saturday, February 17th, and took home the 5th Region Championship. The 5th region consists of all the high schools in Hardin, LaRue, Nelson, Meade, Marion, Taylor, Bullitt and Washington Counties. The region was very competitively matched and the top 4 schools were only points away from each other, but with Etown’s Quick Recall team coming in 3rd and Future Problem Solving team coming in 1st, they earned enough team points to come in 1st place.

Saturday, February 24th at 6:00 p.m., Carrollton Bus Crash Survivor, Quinton Higgins will be the inaugural speaker for the Elizabethtown Performing Arts Center’s (EPAC) new Speaker Series. He is a familiar face around Hardin County, as a Hardin County Schools bus driver and a frequent speaker in school systems statewide. However, this will be his first public speaking engagement in the community that supported him and fellow survivors thirty years ago.

He has renovated a bus, similar to the one that crashed, with obituaries and news paper clippings about the crash, and takes it to his speaking engagements. It serves as a memorial to those whose lives were lost and a reminder to all not only not to drink and drive, but also of all that changed in bus safety because of that fateful night. The public will be able to tour the bus starting at 5:00 p.m. in front of TK Stone Middle School. Quinton will show the documentary, “Impact: After the Crash” prior to speaking.

Middle school girls are getting a taste of design concept, modeling a prototype and promoting a new shoe. Thanks to the STEMtastic and Heels together grant, real-life experience is coming straight to them. Forty 7th and 8th grade girls applied to work on the project with 13 high school mentors. Day 1 was desiging and develoing a model out of clay.

Congratulations to the following T.K. Stone Band members who have spent countless hours practicing before and after school to earn a chair in the 2017-2018 4th District Music Educators All-District Band. These seven students will perform in a concert in Campbellsville at the end of this month with students from over 20 other middle schools.

On Tuesday, January 30th, Give270 board members, along with Joe Bennett from The Eric and Joe Show, presented the Elizabethtown Performing Arts Center with a check for $1,200 which will go towards operational costs and updating sound and lighting systems in the 63 year old facility. The donation included proceeds from a one night only special “Eric and Joe Surprise Show” benefit held at the EPAC as part of the EPAC’s 20th Anniversary Celebration.

The Quick Recall and Future Problem Solving teams placed 1st, EHS had a 1st and 2nd in Math, a 2nd, 3rd and 4th place in Science, a 3rd and 4th place in Social Studies, 3rd in Language Arts and 1st, 2nd, and 4th in Composition. They will compete in the Regional competition on February 17th at Nelson County High School. Good Luck Panthers!